{"id":3367,"date":"2011-10-05T03:59:49","date_gmt":"2011-10-04T17:59:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/case-study-keeping-it-in-the-family\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T23:57:55","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T13:57:55","slug":"case-study-keeping-it-in-the-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/case-study-keeping-it-in-the-family\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping it in the Family: How three brothers sold their online business PitchingMachinesNow.com for $149,000 on Flippa"},"content":{"rendered":"

SOLD ABOVE RESERVE: 69,000<\/strong><\/p>\n

WATCHERS: 63<\/strong><\/p>\n

BIDS: 9<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Success Story<\/strong><\/p>\n

Boise-based Dave Hermansen, with brothers Kevin and Mike, didn\u2019t plan to sell their online business PitchingMachinesNow.com when they built it. These brothers have the process of building, launching, and monetizing ecommerce sites \u201cdown to an art\u201d\u2014they\u2019ve created more than 50 stores over the last few years.<\/p>\n

Yet the promise of a new venture convinced the brothers to sell the site. Just 24 hours later, it was listed on Flippa.<\/p>\n

And within days, the site had sold<\/a> for the Buy It Now (BIN) price of $149,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really only use Flippa for selling websites at this point. It’s the highest exposure you can get for a website auction online,\u201d Dave explains, and indeed, that expectation paid off.<\/p>\n

The Journey<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe set our BIN at the maximum amount we thought we could possibly get,\u201d he reveals. Three potential buyers offered that price.<\/p>\n

Among them was aspiring entrepreneur Matt Caldwell, who showed the listing to his dad, Randall.<\/p>\n

\u201cMatt will be attending college in the Fall of 2012 and is\u00a0planning to major in Entrepreneurship,\u201d Randall explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe\u00a0plan was to\u00a0loan Matt\u00a0the money to buy the business and use the profits to pay back the loan, with interest,\u00a0and pay for college.\u201d It\u2019s an experience Randall hopes will give his son a real-world education in \u201csales, internet marketing, customer service, order processing, inventory mgmt, accounting and more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Randall used his 20-year career in sales and commercial real estate investment to guide Matt in finding a good opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cMatt searched multiple market places \u2026 and sifted through hundreds of listings over a year,\u201d Randall says. \u201cThe goal was to find a business that had a track record, and cash flow over $3,000 per month (to cover the cost of the loan and college).\u201d<\/p>\n

The pair\u2019s other requirements\u2014which included price-to-profit ratios, margins, search rank and scalability\u2014were also covered in the comprehensive PitchingNachinesNow.com listing.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, says Randall, the site \u201cwas a good fit\u2014something that\u00a0he could get excited about selling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both families found each other credible\u2014a big factor in the smoothness of the sale, which took just one day, from due diligence to the wire transfer of payment.<\/p>\n

But that personal touch mattered long after the sale was complete.<\/p>\n

Says Dave, \u201cThey\u2019ve picked my brain a lot and I’ve tried to give them good advice on how to grow the online business to maximum potential.\u201d Randall explains that, as well as expanding the product mix to include additional pitching machines, batting cages, and mounds, the Caldwells are thinking outside the box to build the business.<\/p>\n

\u201cPitchingMachinesNow recently partnered with Cal Ripken Amateur Baseball,\u201d says Randall, \u201cand has established a retail presence \u2026 in Aberdeen, MD.\u00a0 We\u2019re also in discussion with some of our suppliers about becoming an East Coast distributor for their particular products.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their Satisfaction<\/strong><\/p>\n

The sale of their online business allowed Dave and his brothers to focus on the launch of StoreCoach.com<\/a>, a community dedicated to helping ecommerce site owners to build and run profitable ecommerce stores, with free training, exclusive tools, forums, and an SEO center.<\/p>\n

And not surprisingly, Randall and Matt are Store Coach members.<\/p>\n

It looks like this family alliance is set to last for some time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SOLD ABOVE RESERVE: 69,000 WATCHERS: 63 BIDS: 9 The Success Story Boise-based Dave Hermansen, with brothers Kevin and Mike, didn\u2019t plan to sell their online business PitchingMachinesNow.com when they built it. These brothers have the process of building, launching, and monetizing ecommerce sites \u201cdown to an art\u201d\u2014they\u2019ve created more than 50 stores over the last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,11,34],"tags":[],"dipi_cpt_category":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3367"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3367"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57929,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3367\/revisions\/57929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3367"},{"taxonomy":"dipi_cpt_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dipi_cpt_category?post=3367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}